MEMBERSHIP AND CODES

Nigel Ayres

Past Tense

By:
Lee Child

Narrated by:
Jeff Harding

Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,602

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,452

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,456

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Past Tense by Lee Child. From number one best seller Lee Child, the thrilling new blockbuster featuring hero Jack Reacher. Reacher, the eternal drifter, happens by chance on the small New Hampshire town he remembers his father was supposed to have come from. But when he starts looking for his dad's old home, he finds there's no record of anyone named Reacher ever having lived there.

Jack Goes Back to Basics!

One of the best for a while

Classic Reacher. Completely over the top, but very entertaining nonetheless.

Jeff Harding was excellent as ever.

First Family

King and Maxwell, Book 4

By:
David Baldacci

Narrated by:
Ron McLarty

Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
196

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
183

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
183

Camp David, USA. A birthday party turns into a nightmare when a child is snatched after the celebrations. The first lady enlists the services of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell to bring the child home safely. But she and King share a past. Years ago he saved her then senator husband from political disaster. And this may not be all that passed between them. With Michelle still battling her own demons, the two are pushed to the limit, with forces aligned on all sides against them - and the line between friend and foe impossible to define...or defend.

Slow starting but good overall

A bit of a slow start with the plot setup, but a good read nonetheless. The reading was good too.

Going Off Alarming

The Autobiography: Vol 2

By:
Danny Baker

Narrated by:
Danny Baker

Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
428

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
402

Story

5 out of 5 stars
403

Danny Baker's first volume of autobiography,
Going to Sea in a Sieve, was a
Sunday Times best seller, acclaimed for its nonstop humour and anecdotal flourish. It told the exploits of Danny's extraordinary childhood and the wild living of his teenage years. Now he is 25, and it is 1982, and he embarks on an accidental and anxiety-induced career in television - going off alarming.

Fantastic: candid and very, very funny

As funny if not even funnier than the first. Told with a candour and warmth that is infectious. I can't wait to start on volume 3.

Black Ops

By:
Stephen Leather

Narrated by:
Paul Thornley

Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
764

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
717

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
708

Spider Shepherd's MI5 controller, Charlie Button, has gone rogue, using government resources to get revenge on the men who killed her husband. Spider is told to betray her. Worse, he's asked to cooperate with his nemesis at MI6, Jeremy Willoughby Brown, in taking Charlie down. Meanwhile Spider's 16-year-old son is caught with drugs. But the drug police offer Spider a deal: go undercover, unmask a local dealer and his son will go free. Spider has no option but to cooperate.

Engrossing thriller with excellent narration

Very good thriller. It took me a little while to get the hang of all of the characters, but a very neat thriller nonetheless.

Paul Thornley's characterisations are delivered with his usual huge range.

Dry Bones

By:
Peter May

Narrated by:
Simon Vance

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
793

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
708

Story

4 out of 5 stars
702

What happened to Jacques Gaillard? The brilliant teacher at the École Nationale d’Administration, who trained some of France’s best and brightest as future prime ministers and presidents, vanished ten years ago, presumably from Paris. This ten-year-old mystery inspires a bet—one that Enzo Macleod, a biologist teaching in Toulouse, France, instead of pursuing a brilliant career in forensics back home in Scotland, can ill afford to lose.

Easy Listening

A bit far fetched perhaps

It was necessary to suspend disbelief at quite a few plot points, but an interesting romp nonetheless. The performance from Simon Vance was very good.

Dead Man Walking

By:
Paul Finch

Narrated by:
Paul Thornley

Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
392

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
370

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
369

The fourth unputdownable book in the DS Mark Heckenburg series. A killer thriller for fans of Stuart MacBride and Luther, from the #1 ebook bestseller Paul Finch. His worst nightmare is back…As a brutal winter takes hold of the Lake District, a prolific serial killer stalks the fells. ‘The Stranger' has returned and for DS Mark ‘Heck' Heckenburg, the signs are all too familiar.

Paul Thornley's characterisations are delivered with his usual massive range.

Operation Relentless

The Hunt for the Richest, Deadliest Criminal in History

By:
Damien Lewis

Narrated by:
Greg Wagland

Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
267

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
246

Story

4 out of 5 stars
244

The new best-seller from the author of
Zero Six Bravo. By 2007 Viktor Bout had become the world's foremost arms dealer. Known as the Merchant of Death, he was both public enemy number one to the global intelligence agencies and a ruthless criminal worth around $6 billion. For years Bout had eluded capture, meanwhile building up a labyrinthine network of airlines selling weapons to order to dictators, rebels, despots and terror groups worldwide.

Well researched and well read but...

Another very well researched book by Damien Lewis but I felt that it didn't have the impact of the earlier ones, mainly due to the content.

I can't shake the feeling of hypocrisy in the chasing down of an arms dealer by the two biggest arms selling countries in the world. The moral ambiguity did seem to dilute the narrative.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England

By:
Ian Mortimer

Narrated by:
Mike Grady

Length: 17 hrs and 59 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
535

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
381

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
377

What was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? In this book Ian Mortimer answers the key questions that a visitor to late 16th-century England would ask.

Very interesting but perhaps not as good as before

I would say that it relied a little on a number of lists which don't translate well to audio format.

Also, the author is clearly a huge fan of Shakespeare and a lot of time seems to be dedicated to the theatre and his contemporaries. Clearly that was a big change in Elizabethan times, but again it seemed a little like a list of facts.

Night School

Jack Reacher 21

By:
Lee Child

Narrated by:
Jeff Harding

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,921

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,737

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,726

In the morning they gave Reacher a medal. And in the afternoon, they sent him back to school.
Night School takes Reacher back to his army days, but this time he's not in uniform. With trusted sergeant Frances Neagley at his side, he must carry the fate of the world on his shoulders in a wired, fiendishly clever new adventure that will make cold sweat trickle down your spine.

Perhaps a little pedestrian compared to otherd

Less action and more military police crime solving but an enjoyable yarn nonetheless.

Jeff Harding is excellent as ever.

Sacrifice

DS Heckenburg, Book 2

By:
Paul Finch

Narrated by:
Paul Thornley

Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
468

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
432

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
433

A vicious serial killer is holding the country to ransom, publicly - and gruesomely - murdering his victims. When a man is burnt alive on a bonfire, it seems like a tragic Guy Fawkes Night accident. But with the discovery of a young couple on Valentine’s Day - each with an arrow through the heart - something more sinister becomes clear. A "calendar killer" is on the loose. Detective Mark "Heck" Heckenburg is up against it. With a rising body count and the public’s eyes on him, Heck must find the killer before he executes more victims....